Mirror, Mirror
by LifeAfter
Summary: R/S Games. Prompt: "Mirror Mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?" James and Remus pull a full-school prank where your reflection because the person you love. Is James the only one trying to proclaim his love here? One-Shot.


Disclaimer: I own none of these characters or anything of the sorts.

A/N: Well, I originally wrote this fic for the Remus/Sirius Games Competition. If you know anything about it, I was obviously Team Sirius. Also, if you don't know what that is, I encourage you to get involved in it this upcoming year. It's a very worth-while experience. Additionally, I made a few quick grammar/phrasing/etc. revisions before uploading it here. After writing it in such a short time span (meaning I procrastinated big time xD) there were a fair amount of errors. So I took the liberty of fixing them, as to help you focus on your reading. Well, enough with that. Go ahead, read!

"Come on! Again?" Sirius whined to Peter at the sight of his almost empty dorm room. "Everyone _knows_that they aren't actually studying—okay, well maybe Remus is—but definitely not James!" He moaned loudly and fell over face first on his bed.

"Well, James' grades are lower than yours; maybe he decided he wanted to bring them up to impress Lily or something." Peter suggested. Sirius lifted his head up.

"What? Study for a girl? That's nonsense! James would never do something that low!" Sirius said aghast. But then he started again suspiciously, "However, I wouldn't put it past him to plan a prank to impress her. Maybe he needed Remus' help with the spell work or something."

"No way!" Peter protested. "They wouldn't plan a prank without us!"

"Well what else could they be doing?" Sirius began incredulously. "We know they aren't studying. So what's left? Snogging in a closet! Come on, we both know James only has it in for Lily. And Remus—well he's Remus! He doesn't really seem to want _anyone_." Peter just stared at him mouth open.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that."

"What? Does James fancy someone else now? I left to take a piss and the second I do he's over her?" Sirius laughed.

"I wasn't talking about James," Peter mumbled. Sirius looked over at Peter, then his face lit up.

"Remus fancies someone? Do tell, do tell!" Sirius practically started bouncing up and down.

"Well… I think he more than fancies them." Peter admitted sheepishly.

"Whoa, Merlin's pants, Petie, you talkin' 'bout love here? That's deep!" Sirius got up and started pacing.

"Petie? Really, are you back calling me Petie?" He complained.

"Stop changing the topic, Petie. Who is it?" The black haired boy looked at Peter, stopping in his tracks.

"Erm… I don't think I'm supposed to tell." Peter started awkwardly, looking at his hands.

"But—but, please?" Sirius gave his classic puppy dog eyes.

"Ask James!" Peter exclaimed, trying to get the focus off of himself.

"What? Am I the only one who doesn't know?" Sirius gave his best pout, which anyone would admit, had been perfectly developed. "You know what? I'm going to go ask James! Right now." And with that he stomped out of the dorm with a protesting Peter in tow.

By the time the pair had reached the library Sirius had let go of his death grip on his companion and Peter was now rubbing his wrist gingerly. All they had to do to get a stern glance from Madam Pince was breath in the air space of the library. Normally, in a search for their two missing friends—though it was generally rare for them to be missing—they would split up. But Sirius rejected this idea, presuming that Peter would take off running in the opposite direction if he took his eyes off him.

It didn't take them long to figure out that James and Remus weren't in the library at all. When the two boys returned back up to their dorm, Madame Pince let out a great sigh of relief since nothing catastrophic had happened. Unlike last time.

Once back in their dormitory Sirius dove straight for Remus' trunk getting more and more irritated by the second. "What are you looking for?" Peter asked curiously. He knew Remus would throw a fit if he suspected anyone had been through his belongings.

Sirius took out his wand and said in between spells, "Marauders' Map. I think Remus took it." Sirius' brow was furrowed.

"You actually know where he keeps it?" Peter said surprised. "James and I were trying to find it a couple weeks ago, but we had no idea where it was."

"Oh, well Remus usually hides it with enchantments. The only reason he told me was to discourage me so I'd stop digging through his stuff. And probably because he thought I was too daft to figure out how to undo any of them." Sirius explained.

"But you're still digging through his stuff!" Peter laughed.

Sirius sighed. "Yup, it's definitely gone." He closed Remus' trunk then went straight for James'. This time instead of just sifting through the contents, he started tossing everything around the room in his search. A particularly sweaty pair of Quidditch robes hit Peter in the face making him let out a great squeal at the same time that Sirius gave up his search and yelled, "That bastard! James took the invisibility cloak, too! See? I told you they were wrecking mischief on the school without us!" Sirius moaned dejectedly and flopped over on his bed for the second time within the past hour.

The next morning Sirius got up before the rest of his dorm mates, intending to some serious snooping. He stumbled in the shower, less than half awake. Sirius definitely wasn't a morning person.

The magically heated water started to wake Sirius into full consciousness, making him much more productive in the thought department. But as he got more and more awake he got more and more suspicious. He came to the decision that while Remus was in the shower and before James woke up he would take the Marauders' Map from Remus' trunk so he could do some proper investigating.

After turning off the water, Sirius towel dried himself as he waited for the mirror to defog. Shaking his hair back from his face he started to brush the tangles out of it. Figuring the mirror was clear now he walked over to it, shaking his head like a dog.

"Remus?" Sirius asked, startled and spun around. No one was there. Confused he turned back to the mirror. Exactly where he stood was Remus, standing half naked with a towel around his waist. Sirius tried moving his arms and sure enough the Remus standing in the mirror did the same. So why was his reflection now Remus?

"Yeah, Sirius?" Remus shouted from the dorm.

Not realizing that the real Remus had heard him, Sirius shouted back, "What?"

"What do you need?" Remus called back once again through the door.

"Obviously, you in the shower with me. But it seems you didn't wake up soon enough for that experience." He chuckled.

"You're an idiot, you know that, right?" Exasperated, Remus sighed.

"Well you're the one who's continuously shouting back to me instead of coming into the bathroom to talk to me. So you seem to be going for the 'wake James from his beauty sleep' option. Not so smart on your part." This back and forth banter helped to push the fact that Remus was now taking the place of his reflection. He was trying not to admit it to himself how much that freaked him out. His carefree mood always came back easily whenever Remus was around, so he was glad for their accidental conversation.

Sirius chose that exact moment to open the bathroom door and run straight into a surprised Remus, who was standing way closer to the door than Sirius had originally thought. Remus squeaked and Sirius looked down at him confused. Then he remembered his current lack of clothing—besides a towel—and that Remus was always down at breakfast by the time Sirius practically ran out of the bathroom half naked every morning.

Noting the giant about of blush on Remus' face, hoping it wasn't just from the steam rushing out of the bathroom; Sirius developed a very mischievous grin. "Oh my poor, poor Remus!" Sirius shouted in the most melodramatic voice he could manage as he forcefully pulled Remus' head to his bare chest. "I haven't been able to spend time with you, my love, because you've been spending so much of the daylight hours studying away with our dearest slacker. If you start spending too much time with James, love, I may get very jealousy, you know. And you wouldn't want me to do anything rash!" The whole duration of Sirius' speech Remus had been squirming to get out of his tight hug.

"Would you two lovebirds keep it down over there?" James moaned from his bed. "If you two want to go shag, do it on the other side of the school so I can't hear it!" His voice was muffled from his pillow. At this point, all the ruckus had also started to wake Peter, too.

"Don't worry, love. James is just mad 'cause he hasn't shagged out dearest flower, Lily yet." Sirius patted Remus on the head and Remus tried futilely to swat his hand away. He then proceeded to give Remus one heck of a flirty wink, which did nothing to decrease the color heating Remus' cheeks.

"Speaking of Lily," Remus said pointedly, which not only diverted Sirius' attention from attempting to flirt with him, but also made James sit up straight in bed, and grab Peter's eyes as well. "You may have guessed since James is as dimwitted as you are Sirius, that he hasn't actually been studying. He requested that I help him pull a school-wide prank, to help him show Lily that she really is the girl of his dreams."

"See?" Sirius interrupted loudly, pointing at Peter who was a bit startled by the abrupt noise. "They were planning a prank without us!" The four sat in silence for an awkward moment until Sirius shouted, "So you gonna tell us about it or what?"

"Alright, well basically we went around and enchanted all the mirrors in the school so instead of showing your own reflection they show the person whom you love most and wish to be in a relationship with." Remus concluded. Sirius had gone a sickly shade of almost green. Realizing this, the other three boys turned to him. "Sirius?" Remus asked, concern lacing his voice.

But that was all it took. Sirius was out the door in seconds with a loud door slam to punctuate his exit. The remaining marauders looked around in shock. "Who do you think he saw?" James asked quietly, very unlike him. Peter looked very confused and Remus just had a very worried small frown on his face.

"Maybe he saw Snivellus!" Peter said appalled, which just resulted in blank stares from Remus and James. "What? Think of how traumatizing that'd be!" He defended.

"I just hope it…" Remus frowned more. The other two gave him sympathizing looks.

"This prank wasn't just for James was it?" Peter asked, more serious now. "You too, Remus?" They both nodded solemnly.

The rest of the day was very painful for Sirius. He snuck back up to the dorm after he knew the rest of the marauders were at breakfast to grab the Marauders' Map to make sure no one caught him unawares when he was by a mirror. It wouldn't be long before the whole school knew what their mix-matched reflections were about considering the way James would be running around trying to make a spectacle of himself and Lily.

Sirius didn't go to any of his classes that day. He knew the other marauders were probably very suspicious of what he'd seen but he just couldn't tell them. He couldn't even admit it to himself, even though he knew in his heart he'd been denying his feelings for years.

He loved Remus. Simple as that.

Sirius moaned into his pillow as he lay in bed. His head felt something terrible, but worst of all he just felt so damn hurt. And he wasn't sure why. Why should it hurt? Even if he did admit to loving Remus… why should that hurt?

Suddenly there was the pounding of footsteps up the stairs to his dorm. He held his breath, "please don't enter" he thought wildly. But sure enough, the door opened and shut quickly behind someone. Definitely not the someone he thought it'd be.

Her flashing red hair was a mess, and she was breathing heavily, but sure enough, Lily Evans was standing just inside the dorm. "Evans?" Sirius asked surprised. "What do you want?"

Lily sighed and sat down on the nearest bed, which just so happened to be James'. "I assume you know about this mirror prank. And I assume that's why you've skipped all day and Remus has looked so worried." She waited for some sort of acknowledgement, but Sirius just stared at her. "Well, it's kinda freaked me out a bit. Not just the initial 'why is someone else in my mirror' either. I've been super panicked ever since James told me what it was about and practically tried to drag me to the nearest mirror and announce his frequently proclaimed love."

"Who'd you see, Evans?" Sirius asked, but his voice was dry. "Was it Snivellus?"

"No." She stuck her nose up. "Though I wish I had."

"Don't make me play this guessing game. Just tell me." She didn't answer. "Seriously?" Sirius sighed, irritated. "It's James isn't it? It has to be. Nothing else would get under your skin as much as him." Lily blushed hard and looked down at her hands. "Ah. Gotchaa. Though I don't get why that's a bad thing."

"Why is it a bad thing you love your best friend?" Lily questioned defensively. Sirius looked up alarmed.

"No one said anything about Remus. Leave him out of this. We weren't even talking about me, let alone him." Sirius growled. Lily looked a little bit startled by his reaction, obviously not realizing how strongly he felt on the topic.

"Lily, look. This shouldn't be a big deal. Give James a chance, just because you go on a date with him doesn't mean you guys are going to get married and have a kid or anything. You're a pretty girl anyways, so you should be going on plenty of dates, trying to find out what you like in a man." Sirius advised.

"Hm… I'll consider that." Lily said shortly. "So what's the deal with you and Remus?" Sirius flinched. "You know, I think I know why you're so scared that you saw him. Because you already have such a beautiful friendship with him. And it's the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to you. How could you have ever even wished for it? You have this wonderful thing. And yet, you see something in the distance that is definitely there, and could be closer, but you're too scared to gamble the wonderful thing you have for something better. Because why did you even deserve the first thing, let alone the better one? I don't think you're afraid of the rejection if he didn't see you in the mirror. I think you're scared of what it will change if he says no, but then he knows you love him. Or even if he said yes. You guys are such close of friends that it'd automatically be a very serious relationship—no pun intended."

"Well that was quite a speech." Sirius raised an eyebrow at her then said coldly, "besides, no one ever said it was Remus I saw in the mirror." Lily just gave him a 'yeah right' look to that but she obliged to his desire for silence and she left.

Everything that Lily said made so much sense. No wonder James loved her. But just because now he knew how he felt didn't make it any easier. He felt like his insides were squirming about inside him and that his head was going to explode. Normally in awful times like this, Remus was there to comfort him. But Remus wasn't there. So Sirius went for the next best thing.

Sirius went into the bathroom and climbed up on the counter and sat down just staring at Remus' reflection in the mirror. Even if he couldn't have Remus' lovely smell of parchment and pine, or his soft touch or the sound of his laugh, advice and common chastising he could still at least pretend he was there.

It wasn't long afterwards though that Sirius again heard footsteps and sure enough, the person making the nose burst straight into the bathroom. This time Sirius knew who it was. James. The only other person who could make noise like that in the whole school was Sirius himself.

James just stood a moment, calmly taking in what Sirius was staring at. Sirius had gotten over caring whether or not people saw Remus in his mirror once he'd had his pep talk with Lily. And that being said, James didn't look surprised either. "Am I really that see-through?" Sirius wondered silently.

"So. What're you gonna do about that?" James asked blatantly, gesturing towards the mirror. He looked at Sirius expectantly.

"I dunno. That's why I'm sitting in here. You know how Remus is… He helps you think." And so Sirius also gestured at his reflection.

"I know what you should do."

"Oh, yeah? What's that James?"

"You're gonna gather your Gryffindor balls and go be a man and tell Remus that you love him." James stated matter-of-factly. Sirius sighed.

"But what if it ruins everything?" He didn't know what to do.

"Cross that bridge if you get there. Then you can come talk to me, again. And don't come see me before you go talk to Remus about this either. You are going to do it."

That was all it took to get Sirius off the counter and out of the common room, the Marauders' Map still stuffed in his pocket.

After several minutes of navigating his way through the school with the Marauders' Map in front of his face, Sirius finally found Remus. "Moony!" He shouted across the hall. Remus' head lifted and he spun around and ran straight towards Sirius. And he didn't stop running until he'd properly flung his arms around him.

"Sirius!" Remus' voice was muffled on Sirius' shoulder. "Don't ever do that again! Next time at least let me know if you're gonna lock yourself away in the tower like the silly little princess you are for a whole day." Sirius laughed, the warm vibrations running through Remus' body.

But then suddenly they were both sprinting down the hallway, Sirius pulling Remus along behind him. "Where are we going?" Remus inquired.

"You'll see!" Sirius shouted back. It wasn't hard for Remus to keep up once his werewolf sense caught up to the adrenaline rushing through him. Soon he was matching Sirius' pace and then almost leading the way.

Sirius pulled them into an empty classroom, and quickly shut the door behind them. It looked like it used to have been used for a divination class. There was a large full body mirror in the middle of the room. Remus seemed to notice and it felt as if both of them were holding their breath.

"Sirius—" Remus started but he was cut off by Sirius warm, but very sincere smile. Sirius pulled him gently by the hand towards the center of the room and they both looked into the mirror. Sirius was pretty sure Remus had noticed that he hadn't untwined their hands yet because his face was heated.

The reflection was of course of Sirius and Remus. But Sirius being in Remus' place and vice versa. They both just stared at it for several moments. "Sirius, you know what this means right?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

And that was all that needed to be said. Not even air came between them as the connected after that.

After a rather passionate session in their abandoned classroom, both Remus and Sirius exited and made their way to the Great Hall. Dinner would have already started and they were so late. Remus was doing all he could to try to sprint down the hallways so he wouldn't be tardy and make a scene out of his entrance. Sirius, on the other hand, was doing the exact opposite and was trying to slow Remus down to a normal pace as much as possible.

Of course, in Remus' rush to be on time neither of them had thought much about their appearance on the way there. And it only occurred to them once they had pushed open the grand doors to the Great Hall hand in hand that they weren't exactly the most appropriate looking pair. Both of their hair was tousled and had random bits sticking up here and there and basically everywhere. Their cloths were a right rumpled mess and they were both breathing heavy, though part of that was from the quick walk down the hall. All and all they both looked rather disheveled.

Sirius laughed and put his arm around a blushing Remus pulling him close as they were greeted by a certain young Lily Evans basically sitting on a very pleased looking James' lap and the ending glimpse of a shy little Hufflepuff kissing Peter on the cheek then skipping off to her table. "Good day?" James asked eying their current state of unruliness. Sirius laughed and kissed Remus.

"Good day, indeed."


End file.
